


Handling the Competition

by antithestral



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bottom Tony Stark, Explicit Sexual Content, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 19:56:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17987597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antithestral/pseuds/antithestral
Summary: [Post—Avengers (2012)]“So this guy’s got the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist trifecta going for him too. Tony. Yousureyou want to be taking Steve toBruce Wayne'sparty?"





	Handling the Competition

Tony snuck out of the room in the morning, while Steve was still asleep, feeling only a little bit guilty.

They don’t do the waking-up-together thing. They hadn’t even done the falling-asleep-together thing either, before today.

Look, it wasn't like he had _planned_ to spend his forties playing boytoy to a super-soldier with no refractory period. But hey. There were worse ways to spend your time, right?

It's just that last night had been…

It was like Steve was trying to _prove_ something; there had been this hard light in his eyes, a kind of angry possessiveness, branding Tony every time they touched. Their fucking had been like that too, fierce and long and endless, Steve pinning him down against the mattress, making him come once, twice, before he even crawled down his body, laving him open with that hot sleek tongue, making the slow breach even more intense, more unbearable. Tony hadn't been able to get hard, not that third time, but Steve had opened him up anyway, with slow infinite care, had fucked him until his soft cock was dribbling pools of slick onto his abs, until he had shot long clear lines of precome over his chest, groaning from somewhere deep within himself, clamping down furiously on Steve’s beautiful cock—

_(“Oh god, Tony, you're so—fuck, look at you, sweetheart—I’m going to— Christ, I’m going to—can I, please, please—”)_

He had come in long, shuddering pulses, as if he couldn’t hold back, that gorgeous golden face caught against the crook of Tony’s shoulder, raggedly whispering his name.

Tony had barely made a sound when he finally pulled out, melted into a livewire circuit of sensitized flesh. Afterwards, there had been a washcloth, cleaning him up gently, and a quilt being pulled over the both of them, and a warm, broad hand stroking his side. Tony wasn't sure how much of that had been real, how much fantasy: the lips at his shoulder, that soft aching look in Steve’s eyes—

He pulled the door shut behind him, and headed down to the kitchens. It was early, the grey light of pre-dawn over an already bustling New York, and Tony settled down at the island, cup of coffee in hand, while JARVIS projected a holographic of the day’s weather and the international headlines.

Tony flicked through them idly, but his head wasn't really in the game. Kept flickering back to last night. “Morning, Jar-Jar. Anything I need to know?”

“Good morning, Mr. Stark.” JARVIS sounded testy about his new nickname. Boo hoo, the big baby. He could deal. “A few invitations for tonight. Incidentally, as per your last sweep of the Peace Corps records, tomorrow is most likely Director Fury’s birthday.”

Tony grinned. Finally, something good. “Is it _really_.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell you what, I’m going to be nice about it. My gift to Fury’s gonna be not acknowledging his birthday in any way, shape or form.”

“How… adult of you, sir.”

“That’s me. Real mature.” Tony took another sip of coffee. “What invitations?”

“Senator Judith Stone is holding a fundraiser, Mr. Kreitzner from DiMarco Corp.’s daughter is having her bar mitzvah and… oh, yes, Bruce Wayne’s dropping by. Wayne Media just acquired Twameva Pictures. They’re having a party at the Grand.”

“You know Bruce Wayne?”

Tony spun around, and glared. “I’m going to put a bell on you.”

Clint was biting into an apple, totally unconcerned, sitting cross-legged on the island, freshly showered, in low-slung Looney Tunes sweatpants and not much else. Bugs Bunny had no business being so overtly sexualized, Tony thought faintly. It was _wrong_. “Promises, promises. So, Bruce Wayne? You guys buddies?”

“Sure. We went to school together.”

Clint grinned wickedly. “I did always wonder… Is it true what they say about those private all-boys boarding schools?”

Tony waggled his eyebrows. “What do you _think_ ,” he murmured silkily, and Clint snorted.

It wasn’t actually true though.

Tony hadn’t attended boarding schools—there hadn’t been any use for it. By the time he was old enough to be shipped off, he was already done with high school coursework. It was MIT that had taken him in at fourteen, brave new world and all that. Tony hadn’t really known a world outside of Howard’s laboratory and Mom’s carefully chaperoned ‘playdates’ back then—in comparison, college had been… filled with possibility. Freedom.

Of course, he had been summarily stripped of both those notions within the first two weeks. His fellow students had been amused, initially, by the idea of ‘that Stark kid’ sharing classes with them. They knew his father, of course: war hero, Manhattan Project, “Did your dad really meet Captain America?” They all knew they wanted high-paying, West Coast, Stark Industries jobs, and at first, those bold, brilliant pioneers of the new scientific frontier had been falling ass over tit to play courtier to Tony.

And then they discovered he was smarter than them.

They decided they didn’t like it. Decided it was unseemly. ‘Putting on airs,’ was how he’d heard it being put about, and the only person who didn’t give a damn about Tony’s smart mouth and constant little marching army of A’s, was Bruce Wayne, who didn’t attend classes unless he was at least a little bit high and a little bit sloshed, and let Tony jabber technobabble at him all the livelong day, even, occasionally, asking the right questions. Which proved to Tony that Bruce might have been the only genuinely intelligent person in that godforsaken pit besides him.

He had wondered, from time to time, why Bruce coasted along on his dismal string of C pluses and B minuses, why he pretended not to know the answer when he was called on, why he deliberately fudged up on his tests… Why he smoked too much and drank too much, why his hands shook and he shivered so bad sometimes… But even at fourteen, Tony knew more about armour plating than gunnery sergeants in the US Army, and he knew not to ask.

Bruce was the slightly careless, ferociously protective big brother Tony had never known he wanted. But people didn’t understand that version of Bruce—and Tony didn’t think Bruce would want him telling, anyway.

Clint was staring at him.

“What?” Tony asked, defensively.

“You’re in a funny mood.”

Tony hitched a shoulder. “I might be.”

“Is it because of your… Are you planning to meet him? Wayne?”

Tony shrugged again, more expansively. “Maybe. There’s a party. I have an invite.”

“Ah. Taking Steve along, are you?”

“Taking Steve along where?” asked a new voice—and oh. Hello Steve, who looked sort of adorably mussed, hair sticking up on one side, lumbering into the kitchen like he had been dragged out of bed against his will. Tony was trying not to smile at him and failing. Like he was a teenager again, for the sweet love of fuck.

“There’s a party. Bruce Wayne’s in town.”

“Oh yeah?” Steve rummaged in the fridge, found a carton of milk and unscrewed the top, drinking directly from the thing like the absolute fucking heathen he was. Tony watched the rapid, continuous bob of his throat as he swallowed. Jesus. Everything he did looked like porn.

Tony tore his eyes away, and stared back out the window.

“You guys are friends, right?” Steve asked.

“Yep.”

“Need some company?”

Tony turned back to him. “Um. You don’t mind? It’s, like, this big Hollywood thing. I thought you hated that stuff.”

Steve had abandoned the milk. He was leaning against the fridge now, ankles crossed, arms folded over his chest, a faint smile lurking around those gorgeous blue eyes, watching Tony. God, he was pretty. “You know people, right? You can introduce me around. We’ll get burgers after.”

“Okay,” Tony said faintly.

Was this a date?

_Holy shit. Holy shit, was this—_

“Okay,” he said again, stupidly, grinning. “Cool. Be ready around nine.”

“You got it,” and then he was leaving, and Tony couldn't look away.

Did Steve just—no. Nope.

_Don’t go there,_ he told himself frantically. Don’t go there, you idiot, because if Steve wanted, he would’ve said—Steve wasn’t the one who suffered from severe emotional repression, Steve was freakishly well-adjusted, and he would’ve said—

And besides, why would anyone like Captain America want someone like _Tony?_ It was… absurd. Incompatible elements. Did not compute.

“So that’s why the mood,” Clint said slowly.

Tony looked up at him. “You’re still here?”

“Rude,” he muttered, chucking the apple core at Tony’s head. It hit perfectly. “You worried about tonight, huh?”

“Worried? Me? I’m not worried. Pffffff, I’m chill, dude, I’m the _king_ of cool.” Tony was sweating into his tank top.

“Mm-hm. So this Bruce Wayne guy… He’s, what, a billionaire?”

“...yeah?” Where was Clint going with this?

“Playboy too, right? He makes the cover of TMZ pretty often.”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Big-time donor?”

“Oh.” There was a vast sinking feeling gathering in the pit of Tony’s stomach.

  
Clint was looking at him with a not inconsiderate amount of sympathy. “So this guy’s got the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist trifecta going for him too. You _sure_ you want to be taking Steve to Bruce Wayne’s party?”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! remember to subscribe for updates, and hit kudos if you liked it <3  
> follow me on tumblr [@pasdecoeur](http://pasdecoeur.tumblr.com/).


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